


( unchained melody )

by pentaghastly



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greasers, Don't Judge Me, F/M, i know a lot of the elvis songs i used for titles weren't out in the 50's, i'm greaser au trash, jackie doesn't like kelso that much sorry she deserves better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9407000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: Good Girls don’t get a shiver down their spine when a greaser in too-tight jeans glances in their direction andgrins, bearing all teeth like he’s a fox and she’s the tastiest little bunny he’s seen all day, and they don’t rub their thighs together when he half-jokingly offers her his smoke - which she politely declines, because Good Girls don’t smoke cigarettes, and Good Girls don’t feel their breath catch in their throat, choking, suffocating  on their own want, when a bad boy glances back away from them like they were never really there at all.(He says, “I think you’re something, Birdie,” and suddenly beingSomethingfeels so, so much better than being a Good Girl ever could be.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Breaking and Entering](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2476301) by [provocative_envy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocative_envy/pseuds/provocative_envy). 



> this work was completely inspired by Breaking and Entering by provocative_envy, a Tom/Hermione au greaser fic that Changed My Life when I realized greaser au's were a thing! 
> 
> it's short and fluffy and entirely self-indulgent but just let me have this one thing, okay.

_**( blue suede shoes ) --------** _

Everyone in Point Place knows Jackie Burkhart’s name, and they know it for all the right reasons.

Jackie Burkhart never has a hair out of place. Jackie Burkhart hands in all her homework on time, and charms all her teachers with the way she dots all her i’s with hearts. Jackie Burkhart is the prettiest cheerleader on the squad. Jackie Burkhart wears skirts from _Paris_ , and the hem falls right to her ankle, not-quite brushing the dainty lace trim of her socks. Jackie Burkhart is, and always will be, a Good Girl.

Her hair is set perfectly (unlike that redhead Donna, who’s not objectively _awful_ and she could actually be quite pretty if she did her makeup a little better, but Jackie could never admit such a thing about a greaser out loud), and Michael Kelso carries all her books between classes because she’s his “ _little darlin’, and I’d never forgive myself if I let you dent your do’._ ” She doesn’t like him much, and she just knows he’s fooling around with that floozy Pam Macy under the bleachers every other lunch hour, but Michael Kelso is a Good Boy - or, he pretends to be one, and he’s pretty enough that he always gets away with it - and she lets him kiss her cheek at the end of the hallway.

Her teachers call her “dear” after they say her name and her daddy thinks she’s the sweetest little thing in the whole wide world and her mother barely looks at her unless she’s got a bottle of wine in her hand, but in the end it’s all alright. 

She’s happy with it. She’s _proud_ of it. She’s gonna get into beauty school and she’s gonna open her own clothing store and everyone will realize there’s more to her than just being a Good Girl, but Good Girls get good grades and good money and they get the reputation that they need to succeed, and she’s not stupid enough to throw that away.

Not for nothing.

 

_**\-------- ( all shook up )** _

Steven Hyde smells like cigarettes and cheap beer and leather.

It’s the first thing she notices about him - overpowering, but not unappealing, although it doesn’t stop her from taking a quick step backwards; God forbid she goes home and her Daddy catches her smelling like that.

She’s finally allowed Michael to take her on a date, see, and he’s brought her here: to a shake shack with music playing from a jukebox that’s a little bit too loud, where he’s apparently meeting the most disarmingly mismatched group of friends she’s ever seen, and it’s a little worrying, a little disarming, that Michael Kelso, veritable Good Boy (although most accurately only a Good Boy in title alone, as previously established), is hanging out with a group like _this_. 

Donna, the redhead greaser with the flat hair and the deep voice and the kinda-nice smile; Eric, a geek who she’s pretty sure she once witnessed clumsily trying to ask Donna out with some kind of Captain America metaphor (and clearly it worked on the girl, _somehow_ , although Jackie supposed she should have expected it based off of her clearly horrible taste when it came to literally everything else); and Fez, practically the only foreign kid in all of Point Place, and the one who was always drooling over her shoulder at any chance he got.

All, ultimately, forgettable.

But Good Girls don’t get a shiver down their spine when a greaser in too-tight jeans glances in their direction and _grins_ , bearing all teeth like he’s a fox and she’s the tastiest little bunny he’s seen all day, and they don’t rub their thighs together when he half-jokingly offers her his smoke - which she politely declines, because Good Girls don’t smoke cigarettes, and Good Girls don’t feel their breath catch in their throat, choking, suffocating on their own want, when a bad boy glances back away from them like they were never really there at all.

And they don’t laugh when Michael Kelso, Honorary Good Boy, makes a high-pitched noise halfway between a gasp and a screech and says, “ _Damn, Hyde, stop tryin’ to steal my gal!_ ”, but Jackie does it anyways, and that’s enough to make the day feel quite a bit stranger.

And Good Girls don’t feel disappointment settle in their chest like a weight when boys like Steven Hyde say, “Cool it, Kelso. The little paper shaker’s all yours.”

 

_**( always on my mind ) --------** _

Good Girls don’t date Good Boys to get closer to greasers.

And yet that’s exactly what Jackie Burkhart does, so they _must_ , because Jackie Burkhart is nothing if not a Good Girl.

So she hangs out with Michael Kelso, and once a week she lets him peck her on the lips instead of her cheek, but only when Steven Hyde is watching - she doesn’t miss the way his jaw clenches, how he takes another drag of his cigarette whenever Michael touches her, and it’s _thrilling_ , thinking that the tension in his hand as he flicks the ashes off his smoke might not just be because she disgusts him.

Good Girls wouldn’t even dream of hanging out with a group like this in the first place, would have stormed out of The Hub the second she even laid eyes upon them that first time, only weeks ago now but feeling like another lifetime, but Jackie supposes maybe she’s not such a good girl after all - and it’s okay, really, because she still gets good grades and her daddy still calls her princess and her teachers still call her “Miss. Burkhart, Dear”, and she’s still Good, really, she just wants Steven Hyde to make her forget how good she really is.

And they’ve barely said five words to each other, but as they lounge in Eric’s basement, watching Michael and Fez argue over _candy_ , of all the ridiculous things, she’s going to find a way to change that.

“Do you always wear those?”

“You always ask pointless questions to people who don’t care?”

She huffs a little, bites her lower lip, and watches him swallow roughly once - _yes_ , he’s not quite as smooth as he’d like to think he is, and she shifts forward a little more in her seat.

“Only when I really want to know the answer.”

“Listen, Birdie,” he says, and he says _Birdie_ like it’s an insult but it doesn’t sound like one and she could nearly faint right then and there, “I’m not Kelso. You can’t bat your eyes all sweet and expect me to fall for your little tricks.”

Jackie pauses - she’s not used to feeling rejection, and this certainly stings like it - but she catches onto something in his words like a fish on a hook, cat-like grin slipping over her face just as soon as Steven’s falls when he realizes what he’s done. He's playing fast and touch but she's Jackie Burkhart and she’ll get him yet, she’s quite certain of it.

“Do you think I’m sweet, Steven?”

He doesn’t look half as fazed by the question as she had expected him to; in fact, he tames his face almost disappointingly quickly, sitting there as cool as ever as though she hadn’t said a word. But she _had_ , and there’s a stiffness to his posture that wasn’t there before, and Jackie thinks it’s a sign that she’s winning. Good Girls don’t play games like this, but she’s glad to take him on.

He says, “I think you’re something, Birdie,” and suddenly being _Something_ feels so, so much better than being a Good Girl ever could be.

 

_**\-------- ( the wonder of you )**_

She’s falling in love with the way he listens to his music.

It’s the gentle drumming of his fingertips against the table, his leg, whatever surface is available - it’s like he lives in the soundwaves, like he’s as much a part of the song as the song is of him and it’s _beautiful_. Jackie doesn’t think she;s ever seen someone quite so alive as Steven Hyde is when he hears his favourite song, and if he didn’t have those ridiculous shades covering his eyes she thinks they’d look quite beautiful right then, caught up in the moment.

Jackie knows he’s not the sort to go to a school dance but she lets herself imagine it in those moments, the way he’d hold her close, how he’d glare at any of the boys who dared look at her too long, the way he’d whisper in her ear “ _You’re beautiful, Birdie,_ ”, how just the thought of it sends shivers down her spine.

But Steven Hyde will never take her to the dance, and she tosses school girl daydreams aside as quick as she can.

She’s not in love with him, but she’s falling in love with the way he hums along to Elvis even though he pretends he hates all his slow songs; she catches him looking at her, sometimes, when she’s sitting next to Michael and swaying slightly to the melody, and she wonders if he ever thinks about dancing with her, too.

She’s not in love with him, but she’s falling in love with the thought of loving him and that’s close enough, Jackie thinks - that’s halfway there.

Good Girls don’t fall in love with greasers, but she’s stopped pretending to care.

 

_**( are you lonesome tonight ) --------** _

She catches Michael and Pam Macey one day like she always knew she would, although it hurts a little bit more than she ever thought it might.

“Did you know?” she asks Steven, tucked in a back booth in the corner of The Hub - she’d dragged him there but he’d gone willingly, and Elvis’ silky-smooth voice is grating on her nerves in a way that she’s never thought possible, but he’s brushing the back of her hand with his thumb and she’d never known one little touch could make her feel quite so much all at once. “You have to tell me if you knew, Steven.”

“Kelso’s a nosebleed, Bridie. I knew that much.” And that’s not the whole truth, she’s sure, but he’s _trying_ and that feels like enough.

She keeps her sniffles as polite as she can when she says “I never even liked him that much, you know,” and almost laughs at the look on Steven’s face - _yes_ she assesses rather quickly, _he knows_. “I just thought he was sweet on me, and I was tired of being alone.”

 _And I wanted to get closer to you_ , but that doesn’t sound proper right now.

“The only person Kelso’s sweet on is himself. You can do better, darlin’.” He doesn’t sound like such a greaser when he calls her that, and Jackie realizes that maybe she’s been quite silly this whole time - that Steven Hyde has oil-slicked hair (that somehow still can’t quite contain his curls) and he skips class and he wears those ridiculous shades everywhere he goes and his jeans are far too tight and he always smells vaguely of smoke but he’s the kindest boy she’s ever known, that he might be the only real Good Boy she knows. “You will do better, Birdie, I promise.”

She could kiss him now, in the back of this shake shack with the velvet crooning of Elvis drowned out by the hum and the chatter of the people around them, and he’d taste like cigarettes and cheap beer and leather and it’d be the smartest thing she’d ever done, the best, but Jackie’s felt the sting of rejection too many times and she wants this moment now, here, to stay this perfect in her memory forever.

So she says “I think you’re better, Steven,” and tries to be surprised when his lips brush her cheek.

Just like this - perfect.

 

_**\-------- ( i want you, i need you, i love you )** _

Jackie Burkhart is a Good Girl.

She doesn’t blink at the shocked look on her fellow cheerleaders faces when she tells them she’s going steady with Steven Hyde now, and she doesn’t feel a swell of shame when they look at her like she’s something _dirty_ , like she’s betrayed them in the most heinous way she possibly could.

She pins her hair in perfect curls and her lipgloss is never a shade too dark and she only kisses her darling in places where she’s quite certain no one will see, and she doesn’t scold him too much when he lets his hands slip a little lower than they should (she’s a Good Girl, certainly, but she’s only human) and she almost never laughs when he groans as she pulls away because she feels the exact same way he does - she can’t stand spending a minute without him.

Steven still smells like cigarettes and cheap beer and leather but he doesn’t taste like them as much as she’d thought; he tastes a little sweeter, like strawberry milkshakes and lollipops and she tries not to mock the horrified screech Michael makes when he catches them necking in the back of The Hub; _tries_ is not _succeeds_ , however, and the look of pride on Steven’s face is worth all the whispers they endure for a week.

And maybe Jackie Burkhart isn’t such a Good Girl anymore at all, but it’s okay, she thinks, it’s fine.

Her teachers don’t call her _dear_ any more but her grades are still sublime, and her daddy still calls her Princess but it’s always in a warning tone - which is quite alright, really, since she was starting to get annoyed with it anyways. Her mother doesn’t drape herself over Steven the way she always did with any of Jackie’s other male peers, and Steven hardly gives Pamela a second glance, mostly because he’s far too busy staring at her as if she’s something special.

And here are the things that Jackie knows:

\- She loves Steven Hyde, veritable greaser, and she feels rather good about that fact.  
\- She’s still the prettiest girl in all of Point Place, and everyone still knows her name (not for the same reasons as before, but they know it).  
\- Donna’s actually one of the best people Jackie knows, and she’d be even better if she let Jackie fix up her miserable hair.  
\- Good Girls don’t wear red lipstick but she’s certain she could pull it off.  
\- Steven kisses her neck and calls her darling and she’s not a Good Girl anymore, but she feels pretty damn fantastic about it.


End file.
